This artist's concept depicts the stationary InSight lander at work studying the interior of Mars. The InSight mission (for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is scheduled to launch in March 2018 and land on Mars six months later. It will investigate processes that formed and shaped Mars and will help scientists better understand the evolution of our inner solar system's rocky planets, including Earth.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

InSight’s instrumentation has been provided by four European countries: France, Switzerland, Germany and the United Kingdom. The UK contribution is a seismometer based on MEMS technology and was designed by Imperial College & Oxford University led by Prof. Tom Pike. This instrument is a three-axis microseismometer (called SP for short period).

The MarsQuake project is intended to provide a set of teaching resources and classroom activities that will use the latest data and images sent back from the NASA InSight mission to Mars.

Aimed at 11–18 year-olds (KS3–5), these activities include modelling and locating meteorite impacts known as 'marsquakes'.

Launch and landing timeline

InSight successfully launched on 5 May 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The cruise phase to Mars lasts about six months. Landing, in the Elysium Planitia region, is scheduled for 26 November 2018.

InSight will deploy two seismometers that will send the latest data back to Earth by early 2019. It offers our first chance to look at extra-terrestrial 'quake' data since the Apollo moon missions of the late 1960s–early-1970s.

Data from InSight's seismometers will be transmitted back to Earth and be freely accessible from the IRIS website. The mission is expected to last at least a year and should send back a continuous stream of data for scientists — and students — to analyse.

Why did Mars evolve differently from Earth?

Gathering detailed knowledge of the interior of Mars, and comparing it to Earth, will help scientists better understand how terrestrial planets form and evolve.

How will MarsQuake be delivered to schools?

MarsQuake online resources and background science booklet were made available from the British Geological Survey website in spring 2018. The National Space Academy will deliver teacher training, via its network of 'lead educators', to approximately 600 secondary school teachers, through the second half of 2018.